Biden apologizes to Ukraine for US arms delay that allowed Russia to make crucial gains

President Joe Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris on Friday as the United States clashes with its ally and the Kremlin over U.S. arms supplies.

Biden issued his first public apology for the months-long delay in U.S. military aid that Russia exploited to make crucial advances on the battlefield. He also announced a new $225 million weapons package, including air defense interceptors, artillery munitions and other critical capabilities.

“I assure you that the United States will stand with you,” Biden told Zelenskyy. “We’re still completely in it,” he added.

The meeting in the French capital comes as kyiv's army is under pressure from a new Russian offensive in the north and intense attacks in the east, a perilous moment that has seen its allies let Ukraine lead strikes inside Russia using Western weapons.

It also follows the events of the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, which Zelenskyy attended and where Biden drew parallels between this crucial battle to liberate Europe from Nazi rule and Ukraine's current struggle against Russia.

Biden and Zelenzky met at the White House in December, when the Ukrainian leader came to press Congress to approve new military aid to his struggling troops on the front lines. But kyiv is increasingly frustrated by the pace of military assistance and persistent limits on the use of weapons once received.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who is hosting the two leaders, gave kyiv his own boost on Thursday.

France will supply its Mirage fighter jets and train a brigade of Ukrainian soldiers, Macron said, although details were not immediately clear.

Tensions between kyiv's allies and Moscow are at an unprecedented high following the decision to allow Ukraine limited use of Western-supplied weapons to strike military targets inside Russia's border regions.

Despite this change, kyiv's troops remain outnumbered and outgunned, and Zelensky is pushing for more.

He has previously said the limited easing of restrictions was not enough, with Ukraine apparently keen to use other long-range Western weapons to strike deeper inside enemy territory.

This new support for Ukraine, however, infuriated the Kremlin. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Wednesday that he could deploy weapons to countries likely to strike the West in response, and said Washington and its partners were wrong to assume it would never use nuclear weapons .

Putin is expected to speak Friday at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, where he will likely touch on the same topics.

Its troops became bogged down in the Kharkiv border region after launching a new attack last month, further straining the Ukrainian army's limited resources. Although Russia claimed a number of villages during the first weeks of the offensive, it appears that kyiv was successful in blocking the advance.

Zelensky told Biden on Friday that US decisions had had “a very positive influence” in the region.

Biden signaled in an interview Thursday that Washington remains cautious, emphasizing that kyiv still cannot use U.S. weapons to strike deep into Russia, for example to target Moscow or the Kremlin itself.

But he nonetheless gave rhetorical support to kyiv's cause, drawing a direct link to the Allied struggle against Adolf Hitler.

Speaking at the D-Day ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery earlier Thursday, Biden called Putin a “tyrant bent on domination.”

“We are not going away,” he said, speaking of U.S. support for Europe's current struggle with World War II veterans. “Because if we do, Ukraine will be subjugated. »

Biden will deliver another speech Friday, echoing former President Ronald Reagan with a speech about democracy and freedom at Pointe du Hoc — the Normandy cliffs that separate the beaches where U.S. troops landed on D-Day.